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Unveiling the secrets of a habitable world with JAXA’s small-body missions

Nature Astronomy volume 3, pages 284–286 (2019)Cite this article

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After the return of Hayabusa from asteroid Itokawa in 2010, the Japanese space agency JAXA developed a plan to investigate how our planet became habitable. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft mission to the asteroid Ryugu is just one part of this exploration that aims to track water and organics throughout our Solar System.

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Fig. 1

JAXA/National Central University

Fig. 2: Unlocking the secrets of a habitable world.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Sagamihara City, Japan

    Masaki Fujimoto & Elizabeth J. Tasker

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  1. Masaki Fujimoto
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  2. Elizabeth J. Tasker
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Correspondence to Masaki Fujimoto.

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Fujimoto, M., Tasker, E.J. Unveiling the secrets of a habitable world with JAXA’s small-body missions. Nat Astron 3, 284–286 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0745-8

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